


and i'll never leave

by strangehighs



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Getting Together, Introspection, Pre-Canon, Romantic Fluff, barely there really, soft smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28010460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangehighs/pseuds/strangehighs
Summary: She dreamt of rivers, the comfort of her youth; she dreamt of wandering while the world changed around her and she remained the same until the weight of time felt like a stone crushing her chest with every breath. Sometimes she thought she felt touch, gentle as it offered her morsels of food, sips of water, but it couldn’t be. It couldn’t.How dreams become reality, and yet they still feel like dreams.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	and i'll never leave

Reality and dream merged together for so long, hazy and undefined, that she didn't recognize one from the other when it happened. She intimately knew the contours of the shadow hiding the inclement sun, her only companion in the emptiness that was her life. Her shadow had dark hair—sometimes loose down her back like creeping vines, other times braided and twisted in complex patterns—and light eyes the color of the sea shallows of her old home, such as she had never seen before the first time she felt death sinking its claws into her flesh, only to spit her back out again. Springy, strong like a great hunting cat, she was not young, but neither was she old; she had seen her shadow cut down enemies and arch in pleasure with the same grace.

The hands on her skin felt like a dream, reverent, blessedly cool while she felt as though she was burning up from the inside out. She closed her eyes when these same hands pulled her up and away from the ground, and it was night when she finally managed to open them again, her shadow still there. A waterskin pressed against her dry lips, and she drank and drank propped up on a warm chest. The rise and fall, the steady heartbeat lulled her back to sleep, and if she were a little more conscious she would notice her dreams were now empty.

She dreamt of rivers, the comfort of her youth; she dreamt of wandering while the world changed around her and she remained the same until the weight of time felt like a stone crushing her chest with every breath. Sometimes she thought she felt touch, gentle as it offered her morsels of food, sips of water, but it couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

It must have taken her a few days at most, but she was never sureand she never received an answer when she asked later. All she remembered was that one night when she woke up and felt arms around her, she knew them to be real. It was a silly thing, really, a simple detail she would beat herself up for overlooking: she was thirsty, and the rocky ground dug at her hip, while in her dreams she never felt the discomfort that followed reality. This was real.

The woman woke as soon as she sat up, still and expectant under her scrutiny. She felt her breath quicken, a thing so much like hope blooming in her chest she almost wanted to shy away from it. Her fingers touched the back of a hand, solid and real, and she felt the hope swelling to a storm; she raised her hands to that face she’d seen so many times, the one that kept her from falling apart more times than she could count. High cheekbones, soft lips parting to reveal a string of perfectly white teeth such as she had hardly seen before. The hair, uncovered and braided tightly like the tough rope she once used to rein in boats; she wrapped it around her palm, holding her in place with it, and she just let her.

A hand came up to her hip, hesitant as it rested over the battered tunic. It clutched the fabric tight, the fingers clawing and desperate, but it didn’t make her feel afraid. On the hand she still rested on her shadow’s cheek she felt a tear.

Only after she was pulled into a warm embrace she realised she was also crying. The other woman smelt of leather, and sweat, and dust, and she was _real_. She heard choked-off words muttered against her tangled hair, and while the meaning eluded her she understood the feeling too well.

They had found each other. And they didn’t have to be alone anymore.

* * *

It was easier than she ever thought, communication. With gestures, the woman asked her to name a few things they could see in their makeshift camp: a rock, the sky, the dregs of water in the skin pouch. She did and waited while the other frowned in concentration, testing a word here and there to see if she was understood. In the end, she found one, the words rolling out of her mouth dusty and stiff with disuse; it wasn’t quite the same language, but it was similar enough to what she knew was spoken further inland of her old home that they could understand each other. For a moment she regretted not trying to keep up, to learn her way better around the people she avoided; the woman’s genuine smile when she told her she had beautiful eyes made her forget it entirely.

(“I’ve had many names,” the woman said when she asked, with a shrug as if she didn’t know how it hurt her. She’d seen her cry in her dreams too. “What about you?”

“None that matters now,” she answered.

“And what should I call you?”

“What should I call _you_?” she asked back, and the woman narrowed her eyes before they both burst laughing. They had time to figure it out.)

They travelled together through empty lands, and each night as they laid side by side to rest, the vastness of the sky made her feel as if they were the only creatures roaming the world. But now, instead of loneliness, she felt content.

The woman had no words to describe how long she had lived, only she’d seen winters and summers beyond count. She’d left her people to see the world, exhausted by the loneliness each new season brought, and travelled in whichever direction her whims demanded; she’d seen different seas and strange creatures that sounded more tale than reality, woolen beasts with long tusks that lived in the coldest of places, deer-like animals with necks as long as trees. It all sounded so fantastical and alluring in her storyteller’s voice that it almost hid the pain of watching it all die while remaining unchanged.

They talked, and talked, and talked, and it felt magical just to have someone else to fill in the silence. Laughing, she barely remembered how it felt like, and yet she now laughed at the silliest things her companion did; she loved making her laugh too, to see the weariness leaving her face.

When the lake unfolded in front of their eyes she felt like weeping. She’d missed the water, even though this was no running river or swaying sea; they undressed, wading in with matching groans at how good it felt. It took long to scrub out the grime and sweat with sand from the bottom, but in the end, they succeeded; when she suggested swimming out to a small rocky island in sight, just because they could and _why not_ , all her companion did was walk out to fish a comb out of her bag and gesture her to go ahead.

Toasting in the sun on your own volition was entirely different from dying out in the desert; the rocks were warm as she laid down with a content sigh. Her companion sat brushing out her own hair. It wasn’t too long, just a bit past her shoulder blades; in her dreams, she’d seen it falling down to her waist, and one special time shaved to the skin. Both suited her, she thought, rolling on her belly to watch.

Other dreams came to her mind.

She brushed her finger along her shin, feather-soft, and her companion stopped. “Will you braid my hair as you do yours?” she asked. Her companion smiled.

Her fingers parted the hair deftly, before combing it slowly. At no moment she felt the tool snag, or pull at her scalp, and it must not have been easy with how messy it was; her companion persevered with the gentlest of touches, and sooner than she expected she felt the comb run smoothly from root to tip. Although she couldn’t see the pattern forming, she knew it to be much more complex than the simple ones she used in her girlhood; it swirled and twisted, with multiple braids converging into one. She knew it to be beautiful because she could feel it was done with love.

It was a strange thought, that of love. The time since she’d been found was a grain of sand in how long she’d been roaming the world—even less significant if she thought about her companion’s life—and yet, here in her arms, she felt like she’d loved her since she was born.

Maybe they’d been made for each other, she thought, feeling the fingers tie the end of the braid and move to trace her shoulders, her ears. The only two pieces alike in the entire world.

She let her hands roam the parts of her companion she could reach: the hairs on her shins tickling her palms until she came up to the softer flesh of her thighs, much paler than her face. Reclining fully on the body behind her, she felt the rings on the woman’s nipples skin warm against her shoulder blades; strong arms circled her, pulling her close until no space remained, and she sighed.

“Sometimes,” she felt the whisper on her cheek, “I feel like I should pinch myself awake… I can hardly believe…”

“I know.” The warmth of the sun, of another’s skin on hers, of _belonging_ , made her drunk, giddy with the happiness bubbling up her chest until she couldn’t contain it. She giggled, free like the young girl she hadn’t been in so long, turning her head to bury it on her companion's hair. The arms around her tightened and the giggling turned to laughter.

“What’s so funny?” the woman asked, biting back a few huffs of her own.

She looked at her, a little breathless. “I’m just… happy,” she said. This close up she could see the shadows of old patterns drawn on her companion’s skin, faded and missing pieces as if the skin had been grown anew. It probably had. She closed the distance, her first soft kiss turning deeper a moment later; it had been so long, and she was bound to be missing a few details of those memories, but she was sure no other kiss had made her feel this right. A hand moved to her chest, lazily worrying her nipple, and when it moved lower she remembered those dreams.

When the hand stopped on her lower belly, seeking permission, she took it on her own and guided it to where she wanted the most. She felt a grin against her cheek when it wrought the first gasp out of her chest, and she vowed to pull the same reactions out of her companion as soon as she could, to listen in the flesh to what she’d only witnessed in her dreams. Her mind blanked in pleasure, skin prickling against the now chilly breeze as she caught her breath. All the while the arms around her never let off their embrace.

“It’s a good thing we don’t stay sunburnt anymore,” she mused a while later, as her companion dozed like a lazy cat. A raised eyebrow, and she stroked a reddened shoulder. “We’ll be peeling the entire night.”

A shrug. “Worth it, in my opinion,” the woman answered, grinning into her chest as she played with her hair.

“What do we do now?”

Another shrug. “Whatever we want, I think.” She punctuated the words with kisses, climbing up her collarbones with each word. “Travel the world, see all those things I told you about.” She paused, looking down at her, earnest. “Or we could just settle somewhere and live.”

She considered her options. “Both,” she said, and her companion frowned in confusion. “We have time,” she explained, “So why not try one, and then the other, and see where that takes us?” The woman smiled.

“We have forever.”

In time, they would see much, more than any other human ever did. They would find names for themselves, ones that felt right to who they were, even though it took more than a few tries. In the end, it didn’t matter. As long as they had each other they were content to just be.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just some soft Andy/Quynh because yeah. As always, you can find me at my [tumblr](https://strangehighs.tumblr.com/) for more The Old Guard disgruntled mutterings ✌️✌️✌️✌️


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